


Anything for You

by agreatwave



Series: Where in the World is Patrick Brewer? [3]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: 4x08 The Jazzaguy, Canon Compliant, Light Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, Pining, Stress Cleaning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23020807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agreatwave/pseuds/agreatwave
Summary: So now here he is. 1 am. Deep cleaning Ray’s kitchen.Missing Scenes from 4x08 The Jazzaguy
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: Where in the World is Patrick Brewer? [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622923
Comments: 23
Kudos: 205





	Anything for You

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third story in a series of short ficlets exploring each episode of Schitt's Creek from which Patrick has been missing since his introduction to the show. Stories can be read chronologically or on their own!
> 
> This one took me a bit longer than usual, mainly because Patrick's reaction to the events of The Barbecue has already been explored so well by many authors on this site, so I wasn't quite sure what I would have to offer. This is what I've got: stress cleaning, random musings about David and Stevie's friendship, and Patrick being the anxious mess in the relationship for once. Sorry to be dropping a post-break up-ish fic on you during this time of mourning for Ted and Alexis!

**Anything for You**

**4x08 The Jazzaguy**

Patrick can’t stand still.

He can’t stand still, and he can’t sit down, and he certainly can’t go to bed even though it’s late, and he needs to be up early to open the store again. If Patrick stops moving for even one single second, he thinks the full weight of the fear and pain and shame that have been his constant companions for the past four days might finally crush him. 

The store had been busy, so that had been a good distraction for most of the day. He’d stayed long after hours doing inventory by himself even though it was really a two person job, and they weren’t scheduled to do it until the end of the month. When he’d exhausted every possible option at Rose Apothecary, he’d come back to Ray’s and looked over the numbers for the store, adjusting formulas and tweaking the budget, until the headache behind his eyes grew so piercing he couldn’t stand to look at a screen anymore.

So now here he is. 1 am. Deep cleaning Ray’s kitchen.

His eyes drift to his phone every few minutes, the black, silent screen a taunt and a punishment. David hasn’t texted him in eight hours. 

There’s a small stain on the counter from the bottom of a wine glass that Patrick knows is from the last time David was here, only a week ago. He’d sipped red wine and hovered around Patrick like a hummingbird while Patrick cooked them dinner. They’d talked about their days. David occasionally sneaked a handful of shredded cheese. Thinking about it makes David feel even further away from him than he’s felt all week. David’s at some spa in Elmdale now instead of in Patrick’s bed.

Patrick has a brief, shameful moment of worry about David spending the night in the honeymoon suite with someone he once slept with, but he quickly shakes it off, scolding himself and scrubbing the laminate counter harder. He knows that David and Stevie are best friends and nothing more. He _knows_. Even when his friendship with both of them was new, even when he’d only recently found out about their past together, he’d been able to see almost instantly how they wouldn’t be right for each other that way, despite the way they were so very right for each other in every other way. 

Patrick and Stevie would both list teasing David as one of their favourite activities; it’s one of the things they’d first bonded over. Patrick knows they both love how capable he is of giving it back, even if Stevie would probably be reluctant to admit it. But Stevie’s teasing has sharper edges than Patrick’s does. She and David can both get carried away sometimes, cut a little deeper than they mean to. He and David are softer with each other, Patrick thinks. The thing is, David thrives on teasing. He needs someone who can keep up with his brilliant brain and match his smart tongue. But he needs soft too. He deserves gentle.

Patrick sometimes thinks it’s as simple as the fact that Stevie and David are ultimately just too similar. They share a level of understanding that makes them capable of bringing out both the best and worst in each other. Fortunately, the balance tips to the former far more often these days.

No one would ever accuse David and Patrick of being too similar; Patrick knows they’re different and likes it that way. He and David balance each other. David brings things to his life that Patrick’s always craved in a deep, hidden part of himself, the truest part. Excitement and challenge, yes, but depth too. Art, beauty, uniqueness, and a different kind of confidence than Patrick carries, one born not of moving through life easily and fitting in wherever he goes, but from a fierce individualism that Patrick still finds breathtaking. For his own part, Patrick likes to think he gives David the things he needs too, things he’d been too afraid to even wish for for most of his life. Stability, patience, focused attention, tenderness.

_Honesty._

Patrick flinches away from his own thoughts.

“Fuck,” he says under his breath to the soundless kitchen, his constant movement slowing to a stop.

It’s not lost on Patrick that he never felt this way any of the times he and Rachel broke up, even including the last big, awful one. He felt terrible then, of course he did. Terrible that he’d hurt someone he loved. Terrible that he couldn’t seem to make it work with someone so seemingly perfect for him. Terrible that he’d disappointed his parents and betrayed the trust of hers. 

Patrick forcibly moves his thoughts away from the way Moira, Johnny, and Alexis had looked at him when he’d gone back to the table to make David a plate for dinner.

Baking soda. He needs baking soda to get the wine stain out. He opens the fridge and finds the box, mixing the powder with water in a small bowl and applying it to the stain. Now he’ll need to wash the bowl, which is good. It gives him something else to do. 

The truth is, he’s never felt anything close to the way he did after seeing the look he put on David’s face, a mixture of shock and resignation that made Patrick feel like he’d broken something fragile and precious. He was responsible for making David cross his arms like that, protectively, hugging himself like he was self-soothing. He made David use that high, airy voice. He was the one who had embarassed him in front of his family, who had ripped open old wounds when Patrick had naively hoped to be the one to heal them.

_Damaged goods._

Patrick has to stop and grip the countertop, his body curling in on itself as David’s words flash across his mind like neon. He drops his head down to hang between he shoulders, welcoming the discomfort of the sharp edges of the counter digging into his palms.

David _is_ damaged, Patrick knows. He’s been dismissed and betrayed and abandoned, and so so _hurt_ by so many people. But the fact that David seems to think that somehow makes him less valuable, less _loveable_ , makes Patrick want to tear the room he just spent an hour cleaning apart. As if it isn’t a _privilege_ to be the person David let in through the cracks in his heart. As if David picking himself up over and over again and still opening himself up one more time isn’t brave in a way Patrick can barely comprehend, let alone hope to emulate.

Patrick feels almost frantic thinking that David doesn’t understand what he means to him, that he might never get the chance to make him understand. The words Patrick spoke to him in the motel that night were honest, things he hadn’t said to David before simply because he knew they would be too much for him. Ironically, it turns out they weren’t enough, not this time. Patrick has more words he could say, endless words for the way David Rose makes him feel, but there’s only three that really matter and he refuses to say those for the first time in the middle of a fight.

Once Patrick has scrubbed the baking soda off the counter, he finally gives up on the kitchen. There’s literally nothing left to clean, so he switches to pacing the living room, turning the tv on at the lowest volume so he doesn’t wake Ray. He picks up his phone and exhales shakily when he sees that David still hasn’t texted. He had to have received the wine hours ago.

David doesn’t know that Patrick loves him, and what if he never gets to tell him, never gets to see the expression on his face when he does? What if he never gets to touch him again, feel those long legs wrapped around his waist, kiss that smiling mouth? Oh God, what if David never smiles at him again? 

Patrick jumps as his phone vibrates in his hand, wrenching him out of his spiralling thoughts.

_Thank you for the wine._

Patrick finally sits down, his heart thudding, watching David type more and delete whatever might have followed. It feels pathetically intimate after days of not seeing him.

It’s not nothing. It’s not nothing that David is still texting him. He isn’t cutting him off completely. Cutting him out. He’s still letting him in, just the tiniest bit. Patrick hopes it will be enough that he can earn back the space he’d been starting to make for himself in David’s life.

In the interest of the time and space David had asked for, Patrick texts back: 

_You’re welcome, David._

Instead of what he really wants to say:

_Anything for you, David._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you once again for taking the time to read this series, and for all your lovely kudos, bookmarks, and comments on the last two stories. Comments are always SO appreciated and make me so happy!


End file.
